The Anti-Climax of a Van Halen Song

Lee Culpepper

Every time a female-teacher-sex scandal breaks, I wonder if I’m the only person curious to see what the teacher looks like. These ravaging women often evoke references to Van Halen’s song “Hot for Teacher.” The story is not that attractive-female deviants are less guilty than the unattractive-female weirdos molesting schoolboys; it’s just that attractive female perverts ignite more debate whether their schoolboy targets have suffered any harm. Apparently, discussing ugly-female molesters traumatizes the debaters.

Despite these disturbed-female teachers being socially retarded, convincing an average adolescent boy to have sex with a pretty and older woman requires minimal social dexterity. Whether you think it’s the female teachers or their schoolboy lovers who have “scored,” the debate centers over the effects on the boys. Are the boys left psychologically devastated? Hopefully not, but lustful encounters in general leave reasonably moral people feeling emotionally empty. But that’s a topic for another day.

What doesn’t receive enough attention is the effect these teachers have on how the boys view women. Neither is much attention given to the effect these tutoring tarts have on how the boys view daughters — whose fathers might initially find the raunchy details of these classroom floozies’ tantalizing (until Dad remembers how such boys will view Dad’s daughter). Why wouldn’t these sexual experiences tarnish young males’ respect for women? These lecherous-female teachers certainly taint the boys’ perception of other women in society — particularly females with leadership responsibilities.
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Why Did Dental Students Cheat on Exam? It’s All Bush’s Fault!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bush derangement syndrome strikes again, this time in Indianapolis, Indiana where the Indianapolis Star reports that students of the U of Indiana’s Dentistry class have been caught in a massive cheating scandal. Naturally, it’s all Bush’s fault according to one of the so-called experts the paper interviewed for their article.

Apparently 16 students were suspended because they hacked their school computer system to get passwords that would open electronic teaching materials that contained the answers to upcoming tests. An additional 21 were given letters of reprimand for knowing of the cheating and not saying anything to school officials, a breach of the school’s code of professional conduct.

So how is this all Bush’s fault?

Because there are no WMDs in Iraq says Dr. Anne Koerber, an associate professor of dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Rumi Islam: A TRULY Moderate Form of Islam

-By Warner Todd Huston

I finally found a moderate Islamic culture in that inspired by Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi. It is a form of Sufism that is practiced heavily in Bosnia and is so far from the traditionally oppressive Islam that it is hard to believe that it even IS an Islamic tradition.

I’ve been reading a bit about it and I find it worthy of interest. I have to say, I was beginning to despair that there WAS such a thing as a moderate Islamic tradition. But, I have found one at last. Though, unfortunately for Islam, it seems nearly tangential to Islam as it drifts so far from the rest of even traditional Islam that it almost seems disqualified as an Islamic tradition.

Still, I am gratified that there is at least one Islamic tradition of some tenure (an 800 years’ tradition) that we can safely say this is a truly moderate one.

Do read up a bit on this man of faith and love for an inspiring story.

It also helps explain why so many Bosnians have sided with the USA and why Wahhabism has been thus far minimized there. Unfortunately, that minimization is threatened as the evil of Wahhabism is being heavily financed by rich Saudi hatemongers and is increasingly invading the area.

In any case, I am as vigilant against Islam as anyone, but I wanted to be sure and set the record straight that there is a real moderate Islam out there.
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Education or Robbery

Lee Culpepper

At this time last year, many illegal aliens across America were rallying (like this year) in organized amnesty marches. Meanwhile, my Texas students and I were finishing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. News headlines swirled about the amnesty marches, and my students’ curiosity swirled about the marches, too. During one of my academically stronger classes, several students (Hispanic students) asked me what I thought about these demonstrations. Considering their question related, somewhat, to the American Dream (a topic we were discussing from the novel) I decided to entertain their question.

I answered their inquisitiveness lightheartedly by asking students what they would think if one day my wife and I were to show up at their homes demanding — not asking — that they allow us to move in because their homes were more comfortable than our own. They all laughed as they had grown accustom to my political incorrectness after completing nearly a year in my English class. Anyway, I explained that on an emotional level I empathized with someone wanting to come to America, but I stated that illegal immigration is a complex problem that requires objective, not subjective, solutions. I then asked the students what they thought would happen to me if I were to break the law in another country and then were to demand the country change its laws. They all laughed again at my playful sarcasm.
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‘Hate Crimes’ Bill Gives Sexual Orientation Coverage

Make no mistake about it, the Democrat House is trying to make thought a crime. In the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, they try to give it innocuous cover by claiming that the legislation is only meant to:

To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes.

This is an insidious bit of legislation meant to create special laws to legitimize homosexuality and make a crime anyone attempting to advocate for a Christian worldview. This bill makes activism against the homosexual agenda, among other things, subject to prosecution as a “hate crime” because the definition of “hate crime” is being expanded to include sexual orientation.

The bill lies right from the beginning with its opening remark that, “The incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim poses a serious national problem.”
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Americans are ‘Cheapskates’ over Lack of Foreign Aid Spending?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Leave it to a liberal to claim that Americans are “cheapskates” because our government does not spend enough money on foreign aid. In the L.A.Times for April 13th, that is just what we are treated to with Rosa Brooks’ screed titled, “To the rest of the world, we’re cheapskates” and subtitled, “The U.S. international affairs budget — which helps fight AIDS, poverty and more — is just 1% of total spending.” But, by attacking our country over its record on charity and foreign aid spending, Brooks proves that she neither understands the nature of American generosity, nor the American character.

So why is it that Brooks contends that we are “cheapskates”? How is it that we supposedly show that we don’t care about the rest of the world? Brooks contends that it is because we don’t have enough government spending on the international affairs budget.
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The “Fifth Columnization” of America

-By Frank Salvato

The Progressive-Left’s American Fifth Column is most often epitomized by the militant, bullhorn toting activist who, when not examined thoroughly, seems to be advocating for one “civil right” or another. We see them at the pro-illegal immigration protests, the anti-gun protests, the anti-war protests, anywhere a group of people can lay blame at the feet of government and especially the Bush Administration. But the American Fifth Column’s tentacles spread much wider and delve much deeper into our history and our society and recent events illustrate this as fact, rather than fiction.

The American Fifth Column is born out of Socialist/Communist ideology where the citizenry grows dependent on the government while the government increasingly legislates itself more control over the people.

In the perfect Fifth Column world, everyone is equal and possesses an artificially elevated sense of self-worth, the competitive spirit is equalized through taxes and legislated oversight of private business and societal boundaries including boundaries in speech and action are enforced through a shadow set of laws known as political correctness, a set of laws that undermine the authority of the Constitution.
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University Memorialized Suicide Bomber

Here is another example of why our Universities are so antithetical to American values that they are dangerous to society…

Apparently, the University of Oklahoma is putting up a memorial to a fool who blew himself up when a homemade bomb he assembled went off while he held it as he attended a football game in the University stadium. Fortunately, he only killed himself and not anyone around him.

To this kid we should be saying good riddance and he should be quickly forgotten. But here is the U of O mourning this idiot’s death as if he were some kind of hero.

In fact, the only good thing he did was kill himself before he planted the bomb closer to other football fans in the stadium in which he died. But, that was a mere accident, NOT a planned, heroic deed.
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Krugman and Friedman – Part Three

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Krugman is tarred with his own brush.

Earlier postings on this topic were Part One and Part Two.

In Paul Krugman’s New York Review of Books article (Who Was Milton Friedman?), he wrote:

But there’s an important difference between the rigor of [Milton Friedman’s] work as a professional economist and the looser, sometimes questionable logic of his pronouncements as a public intellectual…. And is must be said that there were some serious questions about his intellectual honesty when he was speaking to the mass public.

That assessment applies with equal, if not greater, force to Mr. Krugman himself.
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Toledo Blade Columnist: ‘Special Squads of Police’ Should Disarm Americans

-By Warner Todd Huston

Since the VT shootings in Blacksburg, Virginia, we have seen all manner of wild-eyed, anti-gunners come out of the woodwork to cynically use this crime as a chance to beat their gun grabbing drums. But, proposing that we send government Stormtroopers to smash down the doors of every home with a gun in it to confiscate their Constitutionally legal firearms is a step I haven’t seen in a purportedly responsible newspaper. That is, until the Toledo Blade published a proposal for taking away our right to self-protection that included "Special squads of police" with unlimited powers to confiscate all guns. A hit squad that would traipse about the country invading homes at will and accosting peaceful citizens everywhere.

The author of this tyrannical proposal is Dan Simpson, who is described as "a retired Ambassador" and a "member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. " He is a former US Ambassador to various African states… which can easily be read to mean one who thinks government knows best, darn the citizen’s rights, apparently.
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Success in God’s Eyes

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Real success is following God’s will, not making lots of money.

Sunday’s sermon at the Long Ridge Congregational Church (non-UCC) in North Stamford, Connecticut, was delivered by Rev. Steve Treash. His message dealt with success in the things that really matter.

While confidence is, by some measures, thought to be the best predictor of academic and business success, it too easily becomes exclusively self-confidence. As with Peter’s wanting to walk across the water to meet Jesus, that sort of confidence falters the moment we take our eyes off Jesus as our savior. We begin to sink and can be saved only by calling for the Lord’s help.

True success in this life is doing God’s will to the best of our abilities.
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The Stupidity of American Celebrities, How Low Can You Go?

-By Warner Todd Huston

There was a day in the United States when the citizens of this great nation celebrated intelligence in those whom they raised to the level of “celebrity”. It was a day when cogent thoughts were related in high style, where literacy and learning were prized, a day when to be “smart” meant to actually have some sort of culture and ability to write. To achieve fame one had to exhibit some level of education even if it was one realized by one’s own efforts alone, an amalgamation of knowledge not the result of a program from an institute of higher learning. The general public in America once looked up to people who embodied the highest education, even that had from the veritable slate in a log cabin.

Lincoln, for instance, was celebrated for being a self-taught man. He read classics such as Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Locke. He was able to quote extensively from the Bible and completely from memory at that. He was the true self-made American. But, even as he didn’t have that ivory league pedigree, something that caused many to look down upon him even still, a reading of nearly any document he ever wrote will reveal a highly educated man with a eloquence gained from a wide range of reading and study.

And Lincoln was typical of the common American who once upon a time strove to better themselves. The highest selling books in America were the Bible and the Pilgrim’s Progress. The “readers” created to teach the young to read were chock full of excerpts of classic literature from throughout the ages. And literacy rates have always been quite high in the USA.

Rarely was an American celebrity an unschooled, ignoramus. Few were unread or unable to write in a clear, concise, even literary style. Americans rarely raised to celebrity status the low or mean, the uneducated or the stupid.

Until, that is, the 1960s.
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God, Golf and Gratitude

By Selwyn Duke

Major issues can rise from minor things, and so it is with the Masters golf tournament of a week and a half ago. The winner, unheralded Zach Johnson, stood down blustery winds, benumbing temperatures and the closest thing to a force of nature in golf, Tiger Woods, to win the first major tournament of the year. What raised both my estimation of him and the eyebrows of some ever-offended secularists, however, was his mention of Jesus’ name during his post-event remarks. Said an exuberant Johnson,

“Being Easter, my faith is very important to me. I felt Jesus, I felt my grandfather, my family, everybody. So it was awesome.”

And,

“Regardless of what happened today, my responsibility was to glorify God. Hopefully I did.”

It’s not unusual for athletes to credit God after victories. It’s always fitting to credit your Maker, but it seems as if flowing adrenaline and perhaps endorphins contribute to a spontaneity that makes one more likely to bear his soul.
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Persistent and Inconvenient Facts

Warren Lee Culpepper

In case my “drcoolpepper-email address” has fooled anyone, I better confess that I’m not actually a doctor; however, I may have discovered a new mental illness. I would like to call it Persistent-Inconvenient-Serious Specifics Disorder (or PISSD). From my research, I estimate about fifty percent of the American population is PISSD. Ironically, those who suffer from this disorder generally dislike labels, unless they are labeling others. For example, they might “feel” they are above partisan politics – despite indisputable evidence contradicting their “feelings.” They also might be quick to label those who use facts in arguments as mean or stupid.

If you haven’t noticed, I tend to mock the politically correct (PC) practices circulating in public schools. As a result, former colleagues and people I have never met, but who have read my columns, have developed serious and classic symptoms of PISSD. Some PISSD-former colleagues even argue no such PC agenda exists in education. I concede the extent of damage inflicted in public schools by PC remains unknown, but I’m absolutely astonished that PISSD people deny PC’s prevalence in public schools.

A PISSD-former colleague of mine who apparently has a reading comprehension problem – I noticed his deficiency because I am an English teacher — accuses me of not focusing on the two real issues facing education today — the incompetence of many teachers and the status quo of mediocrity. The fact is my writing addresses both issues just about every time I sit down at my keyboard – I call the technique enforcing my argument; others might call it repetition. Regardless, I assert that both issues (teacher incompetence and mediocrity) are the offspring of political correctness; conversely, my PISSD-former colleague “feels” PC in education doesn’t even exist. But what produces incompetent teachers? Hmm, the politically correct fantasy of a world without competition couldn’t possibly have anything to do with that problem. Nope, the watered-down standards that have led to a surge of students having above-average grades that boost their self-esteem surely don’t have anything to do with political correctness either — meanwhile indisputable facts prove American students are falling behind their foreign counterparts, not to mention performing worse than American students from a generation ago.

No, the real problem with education, according to this PISSD teacher, is that politicians on both sides of the fence and I (a delusional English teacher, barbaric Marine, and self-proclaimed pragmatist) are masking the “actual” issues in education so that America’s wicked economy continues running smoothly! Wow, now I’m totally confused because this PISSD teacher told me he was above partisan political views and my myths about PC! Furthermore, he “feels” schools have always “sucked” (his word) and have never taught students to think. When I innocently asked him why he thought SAT scores began falling between the 1960s and the early 1980s, he implied I was stupid because the increased diversity among students taking the test naturally explained the drop in scores. But when I asked him how diversity explains the significantly lower number of students achieving the highest scores – simply raw numbers having nothing to do with factoring in lower scores — he refused to acknowledge me. I guess he was PISSD.

According to this PISSD teacher, capitalism is the obvious problem with America’s public education. The fact that my mentor’s husband, a prominent surgeon, could not begin teaching high school biology tomorrow because he doesn’t have a teaching credential – clearly has nothing to do with PC eliminating competition or ensuring mediocrity! Of course, my friend’s husband can educate other doctors and cure patients, but he’s not equipped to teach teenagers about biology or chemistry because he lacks a teaching credential. That parents pay taxes but cannot choose to send their children to a school willing to hire a retired surgeon without a teaching credential isn’t a problem either. Nah, according to this PISSD teacher, education’s problem is that kids are not taught to think because we needs them to “work menial jobs” in our capitalistic society, and politicians don’t want students smart enough to exercise their right to vote!

Give me a freaking break! I have no other response when I am confronted with such idiocy. Maybe kids are not being taught to think because PISSD teachers like the one to whom I referring don’t know what thinking is! If the teacher doesn’t know the difference between facts and feelings or serious arguments and silly opinions, how can his students?

I’m not even going to bother documenting facts about the low academic ability of many college students who are majoring in education. Thomas Sowell’s book Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas does a far superior job than I could do. Besides, facts and their persistency are just inconvenient to those PISSD people who “feel” they are smarter than everyone else, at least everyone who relies on serious facts, not feelings.
____________________
Warren Lee Culpepper is currently writing his first book, Alone and Unafraid: One Marine’s Counterattack Inside the Walls of Public Education. Additionally, he is a contributing columnist for The Publius’ Forum, The North Carolina Conservative, and The Hinzsight Report.

A 1991 graduate of Virginia Tech, Culpepper majored in both English and Communication. He was also a varsity wrestler. He attended the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia, and received his commission in 1993. He served four years on active duty before settling in southern California to begin his teaching career. He taught high school English in both California and Texas. He recently moved to eastern North Carolina with his wife, Heather, and their bulldog, Shrek.

Lee can be reached at drcoolpepper@yahoo.com.

Visit Lee’s blog at http://wlculpepper.townhall.com/

Is Social Security a Form of Savings?

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Emphatically, NO.

A reader on the Intellectual Conservative website, responding to the recent post titled Savings?, posed this query:

Let me ask a silly question: Do your Social Security contributions count as savings?

The answer is that Social Security is the polar opposite of savings.
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Highly Qualified Teachers: Es Muy Obscuro

Warren Lee Culpepper

Poor President Bush, I feel his pain. His education law calling for a “highly qualified teacher” in every classroom has yet to meet its mark – more than four years after its inception. I imagine this letdown has to gnaw on him, as it only adds to everything else the honorable man is struggling nobly to make better, like Iraq and America’s out of control southern border.

As far as the meaning of “highly qualified teachers” though, my illegal- fifty-one-year-old friend, Luis, from Texas (I mean, Mexico) would say, “El definicion es muy obscuro.” No Child Left Behind mandates that teachers have a bachelor’s degree, a state license, and proven competency in every subject they teach. All of that sounds pretty good, except for the high toll one must pay to acquire a state teaching credential and the various standards between states – essentially both are barriers for unwanted competition from aspiring teachers outside the existing establishment.

Not long ago I poked fun of the process I endured to acquire my teaching credential. I compared the requirements to a legal shakedown versus any meaningful training to develop competent teachers. I don’t know all the details regarding states’ laws, but I do know the process I endured would be exasperating for anyone with a brain or even a partial brain.
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The Paradox of Reason

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Liberal rationality leads to chaos, thence to tyranny.

The foundation of liberal-Progressive-socialism, beginning with the pre-Revolutionary French Encyclopedists, has been belief in the supremacy of human reason as the sole guide to social order. In practice it turns out to be a foundation of sand, always washed away in the deluge of political tyranny.

Reason as the only source of wisdom was almost immediately stripped of such pretense and revealed as naked savagery in the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, instituted to compel conformity to the revolutionists’ political aims.
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An Oddity About GW

Vacationus interruptus…
-By Vince Johnson

It is now fashionable to take sides on the GW (Global Warming) issue. As far as I can tell there are six basic viewpoints regarding GW:

1.Those who are certain GW will destroy life as we know it no matter what we do, nor when we do it.

2.Those who are certain GW is taking place, but not certain it will destroy life as we know it even if we never change our lifestyle.

3.Those who are not certain GW is taking place, but realize other disasters could destroy life as we know it regardless of when we change our lifestyle. (Germ warfare. Pandemics. Giant Meteorites. Atomic bombs. Huge volcanic eruptions. Federal bankruptcy. Etc.)

4.Those who don’t have the slightest idea one way or the other, but have found making radical comments about GW can put them in the media spotlight even if they only pretend to know what they are talking about.
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Eco-Celebrities Spew Ideological Toxins

-By Frederick Meekins

One thing about the various threats conspiring to undermine human liberty is that, even if they fall out of public view for a while, it won’t be long until they resurface with a renewed ferocity to bend the people of the United States to the will of the elites. With the threats of immigration and the war on terror (both from foreign heathen fanatics as well as those within our own government out to use these efforts to protect the innocent from such violence as an excuse to implement measures that will do very little to actually protect the nation but only make it less free) it has been a while since most concerned Americans have given much thought to the subversive machinations of those claiming to make ecology their primary focus of ethical concern. However, in light of statements made by those straddling that ghoul-filled spectrum between politician and entertainer regarding their environmental visions, freedom lovers would do well to once again expose the dangers that result from those with a sense of guilt for having acquired exorbitant fortunes in a less-than productive manner wanting to control your life in an attempt to assuage their own consciences.

During the 1990’s, Al Gore carved out a niche for himself in the American political landscape as a proponent of a revolutionary environmentalism that went beyond being a good steward of the earth by taking your trash with you after a picnic at the beach so that a sea turtles don’t end up ingesting plastic bags thinking they are jelly fish but rather to embrace the notion that the entire basis of our civilization had to be reconstructed from the ground up including religious, political, and family structures as detailed in “Earth In The Balance” . Distracted by more important things such as having to invent the Internet, rehashing the 2000 election ad nauseam, and deciding whether or not to grow a beard, Gore seemed to stray from his original focus for a while.

However, this errant apostle of Mother Earth has come back to his true faith with the release of his documentary about global warming titled “An Inconvenient Truth”. In it, Gore once again ascends the pulpit warning us ignorant slobs how we must repent of our industrialized ways or face ecological judgment.
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Union Teachers Stand, Divided Schools Fall

Warren Lee Culpepper

Recently, I heard from an accomplished educator, a math teacher at an excellent charter school in Scottsdale, Arizona; his name is Thomas. Thomas agrees with many problems I address concerning education, but we don’t agree completely on teachers’ unions.

I assert that teachers’ unions inflict more harm than good, and Thomas concedes that unions are a problem, but he proposes the following: “While I agree with most of your argument, your portrayal of the unions is not entirely correct. Remember, this country was founded on the fledgling concept of ‘united we stand, divided we fall.’ Since management holds most of the power, labor needs to unite. Teacher pay is abysmal yet is much higher due to the unions. So, I think you are over simplifying the union’s conscious contribution to the problems you discuss.”
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My Shame in Anger My Value in Humility

Warren Lee Culpepper

When my dad died in 1993, my friends’ father, Mr. Ripol, drove over an hour one way – after midnight – to pick me up from Marine Corps Officer Candidate School. The Corps had put me on emergency leave to deal with my family’s loss. To articulate just how much I respect Mr. Ripol, I need only one word — awesome. He is a great father, and he recently wrote to me expressing concern about my writing’s undertone of “anger.” Because I admire him, I listened to his wisdom.

Digesting his comments, I realized the anger he uncovered is my contempt for teachers’ unions and teacher-credentialing programs – keep in mind I am a teacher. I see unions like I see bullies. Bullies stir most everyone’s anger by picking on smaller, weaker people. In my rowdier days, I had a bad habit of stepping in, too eager to fight them. The bullies who were bigger than I was, who reveled their size advantage, were the ones I couldn’t wait to knock down a peg or two. Similarly, unions behave in the same arrogant and intimidating manner as bullies. They’re emboldened by their numbers and size. They anger me with all their scams. They claim to benefit teachers, and they boast about looking out for students. However, they actually jeopardize students’ learning and attempt to sedate competitive teachers. Many union members are not competitive people. These individuals fear standing alone. They stir my anger because they should just be thankful to have a job. They often lack ability, and the idea of holding them accountable for their students’ successes or failures causes them heart trouble. (Mr. Ripol’s wits are probably beginning to tingle again.)
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Linking Fragile Toilet Paper to Teaching Teenage Girls

Warren Lee Culpepper

Linking Fragile Toilet Paper to Teaching Teenage Girls by Lee Culpepper
With the alarming percentage of ill-advised marriages and their subsequent breakups, I bet you’re asking yourself a reasonable question: “What can male teachers, Marine Corps leadership principles, and high school English classes do to help teenage girls avoid bad relationships and rash decisions to marry in the future? Okay, maybe you’re not, but you should be.

Since I have experience in all those worlds, I have some suggestions. I’ll begin with a few notes concerning fathers. Good fathers teach their daughters how men should treat and respect women. A daughter should also learn from her father about the purity of fatherly love – the love with no selfish expectations concerning her ambitions, her dreams, her looks, or even her understanding of how much he loves her. Good fathers protect their daughters from bad boys who grow up to be bad men. A good father also teaches his daughter how to deal with such jerks on her own.
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Vacation time for Reality Check

-By Vince Johnson

Over 240 issues ago REALITY FACTOR came into existence as a commentary letter published about 30 times a year. After more than eight years it seems appropriate to take some time off to see if anyone will notice. For the most part, this endeavor has been a lot of fun. However, there are aspects that were extremely frustrating. Example:

I used this publication to ask three questions in behalf of all Students Attending Public Schools in the USA. These questions were:

1. Please explain the ethics of borrowing trillions of dollars from underage citizens without their knowledge or consent.

2. Is it fair that Congress has passed laws that will require these citizens to make payments on this debt as long as they have taxable income or face years of imprisonment should they fail to do so?

3. Why have over 3,000 young Americans lost their lives protecting the territorial integrity of the Iraq border along Iran and Syria while we are almost totally ignoring the territorial integrity of the border between the USA and Mexico?

In February and March 2007 I sent the above questions directly to President Bush and others as indicated below:
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Leftist Mantra of the Week Award Goes to…

-By Warner Todd Huston

“Dr.” Joshua D. Sparrow got his feathers ruffled by the claims of another writer who is positing we overindulge our children these days to the point where they are narcissistic little brats.

His reply to this claim is typical of the leftist mantra that driving an SUV is somehow “self-centered” in and of itself.(Are we raising a nation of little egomaniacs?)

Sparrow says one of the big problems is that Twenge makes a claim that kids are more narcissistic these days but she doesn’t account for the possibility that our culture as a whole may be more self-centered than it was 20 years ago. “Look at all the people driving gas-guzzling SUVs. They are not all 35 and under,” he says.

Now, after such a ridiculous comparison off parenting to driving an SUV, how can ANYONE take this “Dr.” seriously?

So, I give Joshua D. Sparrow, birdbrain at large, the Leftist Mantra of the week award!
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Huckleberry Finn, “African-American” Jim, and Academic Achievement Scores

Warren Lee Culpepper

Twain’s 1884 classic opens with a warning to the readers who attempt to find a “motive, a moral, or a plot” to the story. The key word in the sentence is “attempting.” Clearly, those readers who fail to find all three elements are the mentally encumbered morons to whom Twain refers, when he states he would just as well see them “prosecuted, banished, or shot.” To miss these literary elements in the book would require tremendous effort or just sheer idiocy.

In today’s politically correct (PC), multi-cultural, intolerant-tolerant, and over-sensitive climate, children are fortunate if they ever have the opportunity to read this historically controversial book. Today most of the controversy surrounds the repugnance of the word “nigger” (a degrading brand suggesting a human being is not a human being). To defend including the novel in a school curriculum, some suggest looking past the word because of its historical context. Other educators sugarcoat the issue by replacing the word with today’s PC term “African-American.” Their students giggle or grimace and then struggle through the rest of Huck’s funny yet disconcerting narrative. But since the story demonstrates how an uneducated white boy unlearns everything he’s ever been taught about blacks — thanks to a black, truly human character named Nigger Jim — wasn’t Twain’s point to offend us? Do you really think Twain believed the word “nigger” was just contextually accurate? Do you really think Twain approved of its common use during his lifetime? If one character in the entire story seemed incapable of being human it was Pap — the child abusing, drunk racist, and dirty thief (Huck’s white father).
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The MSM’s Willful Ignorance of American History, More Anti-Southernism

-By Warner Todd Huston

A rather small section, one small paragraph, in a pretty straight forward story reveals the sheer absurdity and incomprehension that prevails in the Media today and serves to show the emptiness of what passes for thinking and logic about American history in what some feel are our cultural elites. It also shows the bias against things Southern in certain circles these days.
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Art and Degeneration

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Art historically expressed the highest aspirations of society. In the 20th century art reversed field.

I had the pleasure today of viewing an exhibition of three-dimensional photo collages by Renee Kahn, who has an unerring eye for the artistic aspects of reality. Her subject was “Urban Dreamscapes: Stamford as a Work of Art.”

The occasion was a discussion panel (an artist, an art critic, a film historian-columnist) limning the 20th century setting of art and film as background for Renee’s work.

I was forcibly struck by recurrent themes in their presentations, some intended, some paradoxical.

A dominant theme was art, including movies, as recorder of the degeneration of life quality in the great cities.

What came across, however, was the presenters’ disdain for the source of order that historically had prevented that degeneration before the 20th century.
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The Edge

Warren Lee Culpepper

Every inspirational champion has it. Every genuine leader has it, too. Raw talent has less to do with it because the edge comes from confidence nurtured by two crucial factors: first, our knowing that we have prepared painstakingly for a challenge — physically and mentally; and second, our learning that a competent, respected mentor believes in us. Coddling words of a merely appointed authority figure – the kind who often avoids his obligation to confront our faults – cannot produce this trademark self-assurance.

I think of how much time I invested wrestling, working hard to be good, but never believing that I could be the best. At an Ohio high school, I had one year with a talented mentor, Coach King. The end of my junior year, he announced at an all sports banquet that he thought I was one of the better wrestlers at my weight class that year, despite my failure to achieve every wrestler’s goal to be a champion. His simple comment elevated my self-expectations for the future. His words motivated me to believe in myself and to work harder for him. Under Coach King’s leadership, I started to appreciate the meaning and to develop the qualities of the edge.

However, I moved to Virginia my senior year. Aside from my older brother (whom I saw occasionally) and my father (who was battling depression) I would not encounter another mentor who captured my admiration and confidence until my third year in college. His name was Ken Haselrig, and he was a two-time NCAA all-American. He placed second in the 1987 NCAA Wrestling Championships. Ken was a quiet leader, but he led by example. Just my wrestling against him in practice contributed to my confidence. I knew competing against someone better than I was made me tougher.
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What if Homosexuality is Biological?

By Selwyn Duke

The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., recently penned an article that has both fellow evangelicals and homosexual activists feeling none too gay. Mohler raised the ire of the former group by stating that science may very well prove there is a biological basis for homosexuality; he then sent the latter group into a tizzy by reasserting that homosexual behavior is sinful and that modern science may offer prenatal remedies for it.

That homosexuality may have a basis in biology is rejected by many on the right for the same reason it is embraced by homosexuals. The reasoning is that if such feelings are biologically induced, then homosexual behavior is neither sinful nor a choice. Thus, the genesis of same-sex attraction has become a locus of debate in the culture war. The truth is, however, that both sides have fallen victim to a misconception, one I have long wanted to dispel.

Any biological basis for homosexuality would only be relevant insofar as preventing the condition is concerned; it has no bearing on morality. This is for a very simple reason: Biology doesn’t determine morality.
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